Except to the extent of the uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the author.

The views in this paper are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of the Parliamentary Library or the Australasian Political Studies Association.

Published by the Department of the Parliamentary Library, December 1988.

F

0

PREFACE

This paper has been written to fulfil the requirement made of the Parliamentary

Political Science Fellow to undertake research on parliament which might be of interest to

members and use to the parliament generally. In addition to this work, the Fellow is required

to prepare answers to members' request.a for information on particular topics, usually of a

political science nature. Whilst holding the Fellowship in 1984-85 I worked alongside

members of the Law and Government Group of the Legislative Research Service, to whom I

offer my thanks for guidance in the ways of parliament and the nature of the product required

by its members. I also wish to thank Dr George Webb and Mrs Dorothy Bennett who were

of an aspect of Australian legislative behaviour would not have been possible. In the early

1970s David Butler described Australian politics as an 'unworked lode', a description of

parliamentary studies in this country which remains apt. It is my hope that this paper may

make a small contribution to filling that gap and, of course, I am responsible for any errors or

omissions it contains.

November 1988

2

INTRODUCTION

People often say that parliament is in decline and that factors such as the size and

complexity of government, the level of bureaucratic involvement in policy-making, and the

apparent inability of ministers to exert their influence in their departments have contributed

to a decline in the viability of the Westminster model of parliamentary government. To speak

of the challenges facing legislative bodies from a significant increase in information and a

political agenda which is becoming increasingly complex would be nothing new to

parliamentarians. The history of this century can be characterised as one of an increasing

division of labour in all aspects of human endeavour. We have seen the growth of an entirely

new industry concerned with the acquisition of knowledge and its storage and use. This has

placed great strains on parliaments and raised fundamental questions about their viability

and relevance. Does parliament have a role to play at all in a policy-making environment

characterised by specialised knowledge and technical expertise? Is it parliament's

responsibility to attempt to match the considerable knowledge of the executive and, if it is,

how should it do so?

A cursory examination of some western parliaments shows that, as with the executive

branch of government, legislatures too are turning to some kind of division of labour -specialisation of one form or another - in order to cope with these problems. But is

specialisation the correct path to take? Is the acquisition of greater and more detailed

knowledge by MPs by whatever method sufficient to ensure that parliaments do not become

irrelevant in such times? In this paper we look at the reaction of the Commonwealth

parliament to the problem of information, in particular, the extent to which it too has

developed a system of subject specialisation amongst its membership.

The paper is divided into two parts. In the first we shall map out the territory we will

cross and consider how some of the major features of the parliamentary environment relate to

and underlie the aspects of legislative behaviour in which we are interested. After defining the

nature of specialisation, we will talk in a largely theoretical way about the relationships

between specialisation and the authority structure of parliament, specialisation and the nature

of representation in Australia, and specialisation and the theory of responsible government. In

the second part we will narrow the focus of investigation and look at both the form in which

specialisation presents itself and some of its immediate causes. This part reports the findings

of a series of forty-four interviews with members of the federal parliament carried out in 1985

while the author was the Parliamentary Political Science Fellow in the Department of the

Parliamentary Library. Readers interested in the pattern of specialisation which exists in the

parliament may wish to turn directly to this section. A note on the methodology of this study

3

and the interviews can be found at the end of the paper.

WHAT IS SPECIALISATION?

There are many kinds of specialists in politics. Some MPs specialise in the day-to-day

business of parliamentary procedure. There are many backbenchers whose major interest is

the party machinery. One study of legislative specialisation has suggested that legislators

may specialise in one or other of their many roles, as legislators or as representatives or as

party workers (Buchanan et al.: 1960). A small proportion of MPs interviewed for this study

considered their `specialisation' to be looking after their constituents, a role which necessitates

not only a breadth of knowledge but also unflagging energy and enthusiasm.

However, it is as specialists on particular subjects that the politicians of the thirty-third

Commonwealth parliament are of most interest to us. Most MPs have an awareness or

understanding of one or more of the many fields of inquiry to which the parliament turns its

attention. Whether it be education, or health, or taxation, or the-economy, there â¢will be at

least one small group of parliamentarians, and often many more, who are knowledgeable in

the area and who can use that knowledge to-contribute to discussion and debate as the need

arises. They are subject specialists. They may well add their voices to debates on other topics

and, away from the public eye, know enough about most issues to give an opinion or argue for

a constituent but, in addition to these skills, which are almost the badge of office of the

politician, the specialist MP tries to retain a more detailed and relevant knowledge in order to 0 be an effective persuader and opinion leader, if not a policy-maker, in his party or parliament itself.

Earlier studies of Iegislative specialisation indicate a variety of approaches to the

subject. The `classic' examination by Buchanan, Eulau, Ferguson, and Wahlke defines it as `a

process by which an individual legislator brings to the group's deliberation the product of his

personal competence in a subject-matter field' (1960: 649). The implication is of

knowledgeable individuals using their expertise impartially and altruistically for the good of

the legislature and society. To use more recent terminology, they are information gatekeepers,

translating technical minutiae into meaningful concepts for their colleagues. `Thus they help

others distinguish "reality" or "technical knowledge" from "values", "preferences", or

"political knowledge" in areas unfamiliar to them. In recompense for their efforts they are

given the confidence of their fellows...they have power' (Buchanan et al. 1960: 650). At

Westminster Muller conceives of specialisation as an individualistic choice of subject interest

but this expertise rarely translates into substantial influence in other areas and, indeed, the

trade union MPs he studied are loathe to get involved in policy areas and parliamentary

4

debate beyond that (Muller 1972). For Stephens, specialisation in the Australian Senate is

both an institutional and individual phenomenon. There is a division of labour within the

1986; Weller 1979). Similarly little attention will be given to the personal attributes and

experiences of MPs as an explanation for why they chose to specialise because this has been

studied by Stephens in his earlier article (1975).

It is not easy to define a subject specialist. Is it someone with a good knowledge of two

or three subjects, or perhaps five or six? Perhaps the number is irrelevant, given the

differences in aptitude and application amongst the respondents. When does a specialist

become a generalist? And having determined that a certain proportion falls within an

acceptable definition of `specialist', how are we to decide if the parliament exhibits a high or

low level of specialisation overall? The question of definition dogs the researcher. What is the

MP to make of the interviewer who asks the value of an ill-defined subject such as

specialisation to attaining high office? For many MPs specialisation means only restricting

one's interests to make do in a maelstrom of information and an unremitting work schedule.

Oh yes, I focus on just three or four topics because nobody can keep tabs on everything that goes on here.

For others it is a conscious and strategic policy to achieve particular goals.

I chose housing because there are a lot of high rise flats in my electorate and I think its an issue that affects a great many people - first homes, interest rates, that sort of thing.

a

Some are more self-effacing. A National Party MP, for example, opined:

I am an expert to the extent that I know more about my subject than anyone else around here.

It is not possible to deal adequately with all these considerations but there are ways of

approaching them. First, we are -not interested in expertise. Judge makes a number of

distinctions between subject specialisation and expertise which, for the most part, concern the

nature of an MP's knowledge and how it is put to use (1981: 110-116). It is possible, for

example, for an expert in some field to be recruited to parliament but to specialise in quite

unrelated fields. Parliamentarians do not (usually) have the kind of expertise we might

associate with a research ' scientist who has concentrated on a narrow range of problems over a

period of years, unless they bring it with them, nor would we expect them to. MPs are not in

the business of pure research, of revealing new knowledge and passing it from one to another,

but they are interested in the passage and revelation of existing knowledge, and of the

transformation of that knowledge into relevant and workable information - information th,t

does things; solves problems, and allocates power. It is important to be clear that our

specialists are not necessarily experts and that even within the group we might label as

`specialists' there will be a number who are really only issue specialists and not subject

specialists at all.' Subject specialisation is of a transitory nature. While the expert may

retain his knowledge over an extended period, the specialist's interests may be temporary,

even fleeting, and will change over time as the political spotlight moves to new areas. We

cannot hope to compare the relative levels of expertise within the parliament and we may say

only that, in 1984, one concentrated his attention more than another. This study merely cuts

a slice through the behaviour it seeks to understand but, for reasons which will become more

apparent as we proceed, there is every likelihood its findings will be true of the parliament at

other times.

Also, while it is difficult for the researcher to judge the breadth of the subjects an MP

might name and this makes the job of comparing the number of subjects with any other

respondent hard, there is a common language spoken by MPs to describe their interests which

is closely tied to the names of government departments and portfolios. It is more likely, for

example, that parliamentarians will profess an interest in resources and energy than, say, oil

1These MPs are those whose knowledge of a subject, though deep and well-informed, is only retained so long as it meets the MP's immediate goals or a particular issue of political importance. It is difficult not to confuse them with the subject specialists and produce an inflated picture of the extent of subject specialisation in the Australian parliament. Stephens uses the notions of subject and issue specialist interchangeably, a convention which will be followed here. See (1975: 16).

6

exploration or gold prices.

On the evidence of the members themselves, parliament appears to be a highly

specialised organisation. Two thirds of those interviewed for this study claimed to be

specialists, a proportion similar to that discovered by Whip (62 per cent of her survey

considered themselves specialists in one to three areas (1977: 295). These self-assessment

figures equate roughly with those of Buchanan in the United States (1960: 639) and Kornberg

in Canada (Kornberg and Mishler, 1976). Although Judge's self-assessment findings are

similar (1981: 99), his objective empirical observations are quite the reverse. The overall

degree of specialisation of the Commons is low for reasons which should be equally relevant in

Australia. The likelihood of such a discrepancy causes us to look not just at the members'

subjective account but also at objective measures of specialisation. These measures compare

respondents interests across a pre-determined and uniformly applied list of subjects.

Respondents can be assessed as specialists according to their position on the objective

measures as well as their answers to key questions. This allows us to measure not only

individual specialisations but also the level of specialisation of the parliament as a whole._As

the methodology of this index is not without its difficulties, we have utilised a second and

different measure to be sure of our findings. For reasons that will be explained in the

analytical section below and to simplify matters for this paper, the measure used is an index

of specialisation based on contributions to parliamentary questions and debate.

GENERAL INFLUENCES ON SPECIALISATION

There are a number of factors we might expect to contribute to a low level of

specialisation in parliamentary organisations. One of these is the diversity of tasks which

members of parliament perform, requiring a broad range of interests and skills. Even if

specialisation of subject interest is employed as a strategy to cope with constantly changing

issues on the political agenda, there are still many aspects of the role of an MP which remain

outside the impact of such a strategy. Specialisation may help in dealing with the demand for

input to policy articulation and formation; it helps much less in meeting electorate demands,

systems modelled on Westminster this is rarely the case. The hierarchical authority system

within the executive branch, which allocates authority between ministers and public officials,

intrudes into parliament through the presence of the political executive. The mixing of the

executive and representative functions and the almost complete domination of the former over

the latter by virtue of party discipline causes, authority in the parliament to move

hierarchically for all practical purposes. Party discipline reinforces the authority of party

leaders and members of the cabinet by ensuring security of ministerial tenure. Authority in

parliament, therefore, is ultimately a function of position within various external hierarchies,

either the ruling party (by holding a leadership position or by seniority) or the executive

branch (by appointment as a minister) rather than membership of parliament itself. The

distinctive feature of Westminster parliaments `is that the major roles have become conjoined

in a centralised hierarchy with executive, majority party, and house leaderships coterminously

located in the office of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet' (Judge 1981: 11). The leadership

of the ruling party is able to exert a substantial degree of control-over developments within

the legislative environment, by virtue of its position at the top of the executive hierarchy, the

presence of the executive within the legislature, and the discipline it exerts over its

parliamentary followers.

The control the ruling party holds over this hierarchical structure of authority is one of

the most important factors in the development of a division of labour within parliament.

Because the executive is reluctant to allow the development of alternative bases of power, it

rejects the claim from the backbenches that authority might emanate from expertise. Thus

the norm of specialisation - the notion that specialisation is a good thing with positive

benefits for the MP - is conspicuously absent from the Commonwealth parliament. This does

not preclude the executive from claiming its authority stems in part from its monopoly over

the specialised knowledge of the bureaucracy. Judge's perceptive summary of the

parliamentary authority structure is worth quoting in full:

...the continued dominance of the executive is dependent upon the maintenance of the rights stemming from hierarchy over those derived from specialisation. In this respect modern executives have found the convention of ministerial reponsibility to be an invaluable aid. Collective responsibility has been invoked both to deny the House vital information about executive actions and, perhaps more importantly, to enforce discipline within the majority party on those votes that the executive considers to be of overriding importance... Individual ministerial responsibility has served in turn to differentiate ministers, as the heads of departments with access to the bureaucracy's repositories of information and expertise, from backbenchers who have no such access other than through the intermediary of the minister. In this

0

way executive leadership in the Commons has a claim to be authoritative on at least

two counts; first, in that it is `authorised' in normal circumstances by a majority of backbenchers voting in its support; and second, in that it draws upon the `authoritative' expertise of the bureaucracy and major sectional interests within society. This claim to authority effectively differentiates executive from non-executive Members, and forms the basis of a hierarchy of roles within the House. Thus, in being both `in and of' the Commons the government provides the legislature with centralised leadership founded upon a hierarchical structure (1981: 11).

In those legislatures where the executive is not directly represented, specialisation and

expertise are more highly valued both for advancement and decision-making. In the U.S.

Congress decisions are `primarily the decisions of specialists (primary decision-makers) and

the collective decisions (i.e. votes) are the result of what we might call varying coalitions of

specialists and non-specialists' (Grant 1973: 125). Specialisation is an important norm, both

to cope with increasingly more complex legislation and to ensure congressmen and women get

Committees cannot get their teeth into currently contentious matters because the government

2 For Canada see Campbell (1977: 138); Jackson and Atkinson (1980: 130-54). For the British

House of Commons see Drewry (1985). For New Zealand see Jackson (1987: 113-132) and Skene (1987: 72-88). For a general discussion of committees in legislatures see Lees and Shaw (1979), in particular Shaw's wide-ranging conclusion.

3 The leadership of both major parties has been willing to allow for the division of labour where it can

be accommodated and controlled within the party. The parties devolve into committees of their members alone on a regular basis and the cabinet is similarly divided.

11

will not refer legislation to them. In the seven years from 1978 to 1984 Senate committees

were referred less than a dozen bills. In the late seventies the House of Representatives

experimented with legislation committees but did not make them a permanent part of the

work of parliament. From 1978 to 1980, thirteen bills were referred; an average of 105

minutes was spent on each bill in committee and 48 minutes when the bills were reported. The

Senate has two committees with legislative functions, the Standing Committee on Regulations

and Ordinances and the Scrutiny of Bills committee, which assess the implications of bills and

delegated legislation for civil liberties and the rights of individuals. They have contributed to

a general improvement in the attitudes of the departments in these areas (Solomon 1986: 73)

but they cannot be considered major legislative committees.4

The nearest approximation to a system of committees and the most well known are the

eight general purpose committees of the Senate, formed in 1970 at the urging of Senate staff

and the Labor opposition in the Senate. In general these committees, the four House standing

committees, and four joint committees are concerned with what Aldons calls non-legislati*e

omissions, given that modern governments stake their claim to legitimacy largely on the basis

4 The House of Representatives Procedure Committee recommended the re-introduction of legislation committees in 1986, specifically to bring a degree of expertise to legislation of increasing complexity' but this was not followed up by the government. See House of Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure, Second Report , Days and Hours of Sitting and the Effective Use of the Time of the House, May 1986, p.29.

12

of their management of the economy. Oversight of the administration and governmental

efficiency is similarly underrepresented as a committee function with only four committees

engaged in this work. Nor can the Estimates committees be said to constitute an effective

evaluation of departmental estimates because they are part-time and temporary bodies with

inadequate resources to match the technical expertise of the public officials they attempt to

question.

Committee Staff ,

The reluctance to institutionalise a division of labour is also evidenced by the paucity of

specialised assistance and staff support given to the existing committees. Committees vary

little in their staff structure and how labour is divided between employees. Each of the general

purpose committees has a staff of three or four although two, the Public Accounts Committee

and the Joint Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, have more depending on the number of

sub-committees formed. The staff of the Estimates Committees are usually drawn from the

staff of the general committees at estimates time. The staff are not hired as specialists. Both

the Senate and House departments employ generalists who can be moved through all phases of

departmental activity, not just committee work. Members tend to believe staff have a greater

knowledge than they themselves possess (Skene 1983: 23). MPs are given confidence through

the mere presence of staff, particularly on Estimates committees where they must face a

battery of departmental officers so it would be no surprise if they tended to inflate the staff's

expertise.

What kind of expertise do staff bring to the job? Robert Dahl's description of

congressional foreign policy committees in the 1950s, when those committees employed only

four people, approximates the Australian experience. The staffer, he says, `ought not to be so

much an expert research man as an `expert on experts'. It should be his function to help the

members evaluate the testimony and background of `expert' witnesses from the public and

from the executive branch. He should be less the man who answers questions than the man

who knows what questions need to be answered' (1950: 154). Yet some adverse effects do

5 In September 1987 the Labor government agreed to remodel some of the Senate committees and create more committees in the House of Representatives along similar lines. The Senate Estimates committees have been re-established as separate committees and the size of committees increased. The new committees are to operate largely within the resource constraints of the previous system. A judgement as to the success of the committees cannot be made at this stage but there is nothing in the

new structure to suggest any alteration of the particular political and structural constraints which surround the extant committees.

13

flow from lack of expertise. Committees without officers with relevant subject expertise (the

Senate's Constitutional and Legal Affairs committee, for example, employs a lawyer) can

struggle at the outset to develop policy awareness while staff gain an affinity with the subject

matter or forge contacts with particular issue networks. Thus far the solution has been to hire

consultants but this also presents special problems. In both departments it is the committee

secretary who prepares the staff budget and many of them are wary of employing external

advisers. Consultants threaten their influence over committee activites, concentrate the

members' attention on problems staff perceive as overly specialised, are unskilled in the ways

of public servants and damage established information networks. They produce reports which

are too `academic' and, lacking a constituency, have, according to staff, undue influence on

deciding the public interest (Skene 1983: 24).

The failure to devolve significant levels of authority to committees also stems in part

from the representational character of the parliamentary institution and particular notions of

representation which arewidely held in the parliament and the electorate. One of these is that

the chambers, theoretically made-up of representatives- from all groups and sections of society,

should be `the grand inquest of the nation'. Many MPs are reluctant to make any change

which detracts from the centrality of the chamber (see, for example, the dissenting report of

Mr E. Lindsay in the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure, Second

Report, 1986: 59; and the committee's reluctance to remove from the chamber any debate on

a bill which might consider its general principles: 30). The on-going argument over the

reading of speeches reflects a deep-rooted fear that the chamber's primacy as a debating forum

may be undermined. The importance of representation in relation to the work of parliament

demands that it be considered when examining parliamentary specialisation.

Representation and Specialisation

Representation in Australia occurs primarily in party terms. The willingness of voters

to align themselves with one party rather than another is widely recognised (Aitkin 1982).

Identification with a party not only has a strong effect on voting choice, it also underlies

voters' attitudes to the nature of their representation. Where voters once elected individuals

to represent the interests of their community, they now elect organised teams to govern at the

state or national level. They no longer seriously question the practice of parliamentary voting

along party lines, or the reluctance of politicians to speak out publicly when they disagree

with the party. Party identification permits a high level of ignorance of issues and political

leaders. In general voters neither know nor care about the representative style of their local

MP; the fortunes of the party are much more important. Although the electorate has become

14

more aware of politics and more active (Aitkin 1982), for most representation still means little

more than voting and a preference for one party over another.

At the national level the parties represent the political opinions of the electorate. They

stand for alternative approaches to government, for broadly drawn images of where society is

headed, for strategies and ideas about the allocation of public resources, economic

management, social reform, and so on. They aggregate political interests, draw together and

synthesize currents of opinion and, through the accepted language of political discourse in

which they deal, reduce the options for public policies to manageable proportions. In a two

party system this usually leads to adversary politics where issues have but two sides, each

represented by one of the parties. At the constituency level, representation has a somewhat

diffr â¢t nt meaning. Here the MP looks more to the physical needs, interests and concerns of

his electorate than to its opinions. This commonly involves helping individual constituents in

their dealings with government and obtaining public goods and services for the electorate.

- For many MPs the desire to change policies at a national level, stemsfrom an aceumulation of

specific requests from the constituency. We may talk about representation, then, as being the

prerogative both of parties and individual MPs for it is possible to draw a rough line between

that which each represents, notwithstanding the fact that members of parliament are both

parliamentarians and party representatives.

The dominance of party representation raises important questions: what is the effect of

this form of representation on subject specialisation? Does the party model favour

specialisation and the division of labour or hinder it? Is this form of representation a useful

tool in the understanding of parliamentary information use and management? To answer

these questions we must consider party representation in more depth. Can it be said to

constitute a set of behaviours, attitudes, or approaches to representation which are at once

both recognisable and empirically verifiable? If, to be a party representative means different

things to different MPs, if its adherents share no common characteristics, then it will have

little practical impact on the nature of specialisation. To be of value party representation

must constitute a definite style.

Style refers to the manner in which the MP represents those for whom he speaks. The

dilemma of style is simple: is the representative to give effect to the expressed wishes of his

constituency (whether that be physically manifested or merely a particular group of

individuals) or to trust his own judgement and operate in what he considers to be their best

interests? Is the MP mandated by his electorate - a delegate - or independent of its claims - a

trustee? There are no readily discernible answers. As Pitkin puts it, `What is most striking

15

about the mandate-independence controversy is how long it has continued without coming

any nearer to a solution, despite the participation of many astute thinkers' (1967: 148). The

controversy sits at the- heart -of.representational. theory because it concerns that theory's

oldest problem: how to ensure an identity of interest between the represented and the

representative. To best represent the values, wishes, and demands of his electorate, is the

representative to be a delegate or a trustee?

Delegates and Trustees

The notion that representatives be independent of their electors was conceived by the

18th century Whig theorists. The Whig distrust of the electorate underlay the plea for

intelligent and enlightened representatives. What was best for electors would arise out of the

deliberation and debate of such minds. But it was imperative the representative be able to

act independently of those interests for whom he stood and he should have the freedom to act

in ways he considered good for them even if they disagreed. Not only this, Burke postulated

the true focus of the representative's endeavours as national rather than local. Ultimately it

was the obligation of all representatives to look not to those interests they supported but to

employ their judgement in the national interest. The representative who came to the debate

under the riding orders of a particular interest would prevent the discovery of the general

good.

For Burke these interests were, as Pitkin puts it, unattached. That is to say they existed

independently of localities and the people in them. There was thus an agricultural interest, a

trading interest, a professional interest and so on, each of national dispersion and each with

representation in parliament. Through the representation of the agricultural interest in one

locality, the MP represented that interest in all localities (Pitkin 1967: 175-6). In this way,

because the interest represented by an MP in any one locality was of far greater importance

than the locality alone, it made perfect sense for the Burkean to pursue the interest of his

national constituency, even against his locality's will. The necessity of national policy making

became the justification for the independent deputy. In an oft-quoted passage Burke wrote,

Your representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole...(1969: 175).

This theory was of considerable importance because it wrenched representation away

16

from the simple notion of delegation which hitherto held sway (Birch 1971: 22-40). It received

its greatest impetus, however, from liberalism for only as an independent political actor could

the liberal representative ..modify his. opinions to obtain the national consensus. Although

utilitarianism posited the individual as the final arbiter of what might be in his interest, the

representative's wisdom and knowledge could be used to pursue the people's true interest in

the long term. Bentham, for example, favoured deputies acting to advance the general

interest over their constituencies' interests and provided a mechanism to deal with any

discrepancy; a deputy's vote might reflect his electors' will but he could promote the national

interest in his parliamentary speech if the two were contradictory. Although liberalism

democratised England and Australia through the nineteenth century, this occurred slowly and

incrementally. The liberals were as concerned as their Whig predecessors with government

getting into the wrong hands. J.S. Mill struggled with extending the suffrage to the ignorant

and poor and opted in the end for plural voting for the educated to counter the perceived

ill-effects of mass voting. Independence from the masses' directives was a safeguard against

the tyranny of the majority for both Mill and Bentham.

Mill's concern had implications for legislative specialisation and expertise in

government. He was prompted to demand that the writing and creation of legislation be in

the hands of specialists and that the role of the parliamentary representative be confined to

watching and publicising the actions of the government. He considered governing and

legislating to be special tasks requiring special skills. This he assigned to a Commission of

Codification which would draft legislation that parliament could either accept or reject but

not amend. Mill's ministers were to be politicians but they too would be surrounded by an

advisory council of experts. Bentham's solution was to build competence and expertise into

both the administration and the legislature, in the former case because he favoured good law,

and in the latter because, were any failings to become apparent in the government or

judiciary, the legislature would be required to step into the breach and put the matter to

rights (Rosen 1983: 168-82, 195-9).

In recent times the question of representational style has become the subject of empirical

investigation and speculation. In 1962 Whalke and his collaborators produced The Legislative

System which used emerging techniques in the social sciences to examine how modern

legislators went about their representative tasks. Role analysis, as used by Wahlke (and in

particular Eulau who wrote the chapter on representative roles), rested on the premise that

the adoption of roles by the politician explained much of his behaviour as a legislator and

representative. The study disentangled Burke's confusion of the focal and stylistic dimensions

of the representational role (1962: 269-72) believing his `linkage of a particular areal focus of

17

representation with a particular representational style.. .only a special case in a generic series

of empirically possible relationships...'(1962: 270). By focus Eulau referred to whom it is the

deputy believes he represents and by style the manner of that representation. The study

identified three dimensions of style (or role-orientations) which approximate the poles of the

mandate-independence spectrum, namely the delegate, the trustee, and the politico (more will

be said of the last of these below)(272-86).

The Legislative System was welcomed not just for its methodological purity. America

had a strong tradition of delegatory representation; it followed from the notion of popular

sovereignty, one of the principal supports of the political system, that the elected

representative should act as an agent for his constituency. In some states constituents even

This is so for a number of reasons. The essence of the doctrine of party delegation is

that the MP should act on the instructions of the party. In the Labor party members are

compelled to vote according to the decision of the party caucus. In the conservative parties

there is no similar rule but party discipline ensures block voting in most cases. Most members

of parliament are prepared to go along with the party when it comes to voting but they do

6 1t is doubtful, however, whether the electorate pays enough attention to these promises to be said to

be voting for them and studies of electoral behaviour tell us that individual policy planks count for little in the mix of reasons determining electoral choice (Aitkin 1982). Furthermore, while Australian parties do project images and values, these are often fuzzy; the parties cluster around the centre of the ideological spectrum and encompass beliefs and attitudes held equally strongly by other parties. In other words, party is no longer a reliable guide to policy.

7 Canadian scholars Hoffman and Ward have introduced the term party delegate' to account for those who receive instructions from the party and `constituency delegate' for the remainder (1970: 66-77). The figures suggest Canadian deputies are prepared to accept some instruction - 18 percent saw themselves as party delegates and 12 per cent as constituency delegates (Hoffman and Ward 1970: 66-7; Jackson and Atkinson 1980: 165-7).

The recognition of the weaknesses, both theoretical and practical, of the delegate

position in the face of late twentieth century government necessitated a reworking of the

mandate-independence continuum. The party representative does not fit neatly into one or

other of these boxes but oscillates between the two, at one point a trustee, at another a

delegate, according to issues and perceived advantage. Eulau referred to this deputy as the

politico for whom `the trustee and delegate roles may be taken simultaneously, possibly

making for role conflict, or ...seriatim, one after another as legislative situations dictate'

(Eulau 1962: 278). Not surprisingly, studies have shown the politico and trustee roles to be

well represented in many legislatures (Mezey 1979: 172).8

8 Davidson found almost one half of congressmen conformed to the politico style in the 1960s with a

further 28 per cent trustees. Twenty-three per cent could be classified as delegates, a somewhat higher figure than in those states studied by Eulau (Davidson 1969: 117; Olson 1980: 126-7). In the 'well-established legislatures' of Germany and France the trustee orientation is favoured by a majority of legislators but the pattern is reversed in less developed political systems (Loewenberg and Patterson 1979: 180). There is a degree of variation in the proportions of role orientations found in these studies, probably because of differences in methodology (Jewell 1970: 499-500). More germane to the Australian experience both in terms of political culture and institutions are the Westminster-type polities. At about the same time as Davidson's survey, Kornberg identified 15 per cent of Canadian MPs as trustees, 36 per cent politicos, and 49 per cent delegates (1967: 108), but a decade later some 44 per cent considered themselves accountable primarily to their own consciences (Kornberg and Mishler 1976: 94). Loewenberg and Patterson assert members of the British parliament `sense that they can generally act as trustees for their constituents, although on those issues that are of direct concern to their constituents they respond as delegates out of a practical political concern for renomination and re-election' ( 1979:

181-2). In the case of New Zealand the evidence is even more tenuous but Hundleby concluded after interviews with a quarter of all MPs that most `tend to display the basic characteristics of the politico' (1975: 46).

22

There is little direct evidence of representational styles in Australia. A study of a small

group of MPs from one state by Whip suggests that federal MPs require the independence of

the trustee/politico approach, with 50 percent claiming to be trustees, 38 per cent politicos,

and the remainder delegates (1977: 325-43). The willingness of MPs to adjust their

representational styles according to the political benefits gained from doing so means any

attempt to link style and specialisation is somewhat pointless. Nevertheless, the party model

of representation has significant implications for the parliamentary division of labour, the

acquisition of expertise by MPs, and the structures provided by parliament to acquire and

process information. Most important is that the demand for information for voting is reduced

markedly. In order to make an informed voting choice which will be accepted by electors the

member need only vote according to the dictates of the party to which he belongs. Since

observing the doctrine of the party obviates the necessity for knowledge to make and explain

these most central of parliamentary decisions, the need for specialisation decreases as does the

need for other information sources such as libraries, research assistants, computers, data

banks and other means of processing knowledge. Of course this does not mean the MP has no

need for information. We have pointed out that his independence from formal direction by

the party or adherence to the party philosophy prior to the party reaching its decision on any

matter permits a great deal of scope to argue for his preferences or do battle on behalf of those

he represents. Information is necessary to lobby and bargain within the party and with the

government. It would be a sterile debate indeed were its participants merely to recite party

sanctioned positions one to another and obviously things do not happen this way. The

significance of party voting is that it renders specialisation an optional and not obligatory

aspect of the politician's role. The acquisition of knowledge through specialisation is thus a

matter of choice for the politician depending on his aspirations and desire for influence.

We can put this into sharper relief by observing once again some important differences

between the parliament of Australia and the U.S. Congress. The former is of a class of

legislatures which Polsby has labelled as `arenas' - `formalised settings for the interplay of

significant political forces in the life of the political system', and the latter as 'transformative'

consonant with the appropriate and commonly agreed steps?), or legality (is the minister

empowered to take such a step?), or technical correctness (is it the best decision on the facts?)

rest on subtle or abstruse facts which the layperson could not reasonably be expected to

understand. It is reasonable to assume that parliamentarians would specialise to bridge this

gap.

25

This is most apparent in the practice of oppositions dividing their tasks amongst

`shadow' ministers: to ensure each area of governmental enterprise is mirrored by a

spokesperson with a knowledge sufficient to point up the minister's weaknesses and errors.

Oppositions, of course, are well aware that errant ministers do not resign, much less so

governments, and we are not suggesting that responsible government dictates the shadow

have the kind of knowledge which could force a minister to resign. Rather, responsible

government requires him or her to focus a critical light on the minister to permit an accurate

judgement by the electorate of the overall governmental performance. Since parliament is the

only arena in which the government is legally required to demonstrate its handling of the reins

of power, it is the mechanism whereby the public can form its opinion on the suitability of the

government and its confidence in its performance. 9 The preoccupation with resignation has so

muddied the waters of ministerial responsibility that the requirement of the doctrine for

nothing more than ministerial answerability has all but disappeared. Bearing in mind that the

essence of responsible government is the retention of the confidence of the parliament, then

the obligation on the minister under attack is to show the electorate that it should have

confidence in his ability to do the job properly and ensure equitable and just treatment for all

who come in contact with his department. To be responsible in this fashion is not to resign

but to be prepared to give an answer for the doubts and questions of the electorate. 10 The

claim that ministers are responsible nowadays to the cabinet and to the prime minister first

and foremost and not to parliament because party solidarity ensures a minister will never be

forced to resign ignores the fact that in parliament at least the minister must respond. The

opposition has the right to pressure the minister in parliament and the minister must respond

in the full view of the attendant media. The centrality of the censure motion to responsible

government is recognised in its taking precedence over other parliamentary business and the

generous time set aside for it (see Pettifer 1981: 417-23; Odgers 1976: 818-9). The point

about ministerial responsibility is not that a hundred politically motivated gibes fail to hit the

mark but that the minister is forced to be in the ring and, if he is not, to say why.

The opposition spokesperson is required to be a specialist to the extent that he or she

can make it obvious when a minister appears no longer willing to play by the accepted rules,

9 The opposition is not interested in procuring a resignation so much as giving the impression that government ministers are untrustworthy or incompetent. The motion to censure a minister is regarded as an important debate by the opposition but its primary purpose is to keep the heat on the government in the hope that it will make mistakes which are noticeable to the voting public.

â¢ 10Jaensch suggests that answerability was first established as a defence by Peter Howson over the VIP planes affair in 1967 (Jaensch 1986: 114). Answerability has been defended by Butler (1972: 49) and, in the United Kingdom, by Lord Morrison (1964: 329-30).

26

is too inept to inspire confidence, has departed from his or her party's vision for the country

or, more often, is simply wrong. It is no longer possible for the shadow to win the argument

without demonstrating a mastery of the technical aspects of the subject or, as Buchanan et al.

put it, `...something more than a coherent political philosophy is required to take a

comfortable position in such matters' (1960: 650).

Here, then, is a group of diverse and sometimes conflicting explanations for the pattern

of subject specialisation in the Australian parliament. On balance it seems likely specialisation

will not be highly developed in a parliament where party control of authority is the norm,

where expertise as a determinant of power is discouraged, where representation occurs

principally in party terms, and where there is no tradition of the representative acting

independently of party. We should now look more closely at the pattern of specialisation with

these variables in mind and introduce some of its more immediate causes.

THE PATTERN OF SPECIALISATION

One indicator of specialisation is the number of subjects over which MPs spread their

interest. A study was made of the contribution of the members of the sample to debates and

questions in parliament in 1984 across 37 subject areas (see Appendix One for a description of

how the sample was chosen and its make-up.) The tendency we have suggested towards a

wide range of interests is portrayed in Table One.

TABLE ONE

Number of subject areas covered by each MP in debates and questions, 1984.

The overwhelming majority of the sample - between 60 and 70 per cent - devotes its

attention to between four and ten subjects in both questions and debates. Nearly a quarter are

27

actively involved in the category of greatest generality. There is not a great deal of difference

between the procedures but, if anything (and we must be cautious about generalising from the

small absolute frequencies in all our conclusions that follow), the sample is slightly more

specialised at Question Time than in debate. The MP with the widest contribution to debate

spoke on 24 subjects; his counterpart in questioning, 28.

Looking at the number of subjects covered, however, does not permit us to say if one

member has specialised more or less than another because it does not indicate the degree of

attention given to each area. Where one MP might ask five questions in one area and 10 in

another, a second might ask 14 in one and only one in another. Both would have asked not

only the same number of questions, but also in the same number of areas, and yet the latter

has clearly specialised more than the former. 11 Mindful of these difficulties, Judge set out to

construct an index which would paint a more accurate picture of the phenomenon under

examination, and we have followed his method in our study. This index of specialisation is

based on the coefficient of variation (Judge 1981: 210-13). This measures the extent,ef

deviation in any one subject from the mean or, in other words, the extent to which

contributions to each subject area deviate from the average contribution to all areas. The

greater the variance from the mean, the more specialised the member. If a backbencher asks

one question in each of the 37 areas, his mean will be 1 and the deviation from the mean zero.

The lowest score possible is thus zero. In fact, the lowest actual score for questions was 0.87

and for debates 1.40. If another MP asks 37 questions in one area, the mean will again be 1

but the deviation from the mean â¢ will be the greatest possible. This position, the true

specialist, has a maximum score of 6, which two or three MPs achieved (see Appendix Two

for a description of the methodology used in this analysis).

The difficulty with the index, however, is that we must tread warily at these extremes.

It seems to follow that, as activity increases, the number of areas covered also increases. The

reverse is that the MP who asks only one question is by definition a true specialist, yet it may

be that this person is so constituency-oriented or otherwise involved that he simply has no

need or time to contribute to parliament. Thus it is possible that the score may be in part a

function of the level of contribution as well as of specialisation, although it is not necessarily

the case that things turn out this way. The evidence of the interviews is that, in general, they

do not. That is, even those with a small contribution turn out to be fairly non-specialised.

11 This type of index, the extent to which a member's effort is concentrated in one area, was employed by R.M. Punnett in his study of frontbench opposition in Britain (1973: 473-81).

28

But it is still advisable to approach the index scores with a degree of caution. 12 The best

approach would be to determine a minimum cut-off level but this is precluded by the small

size of our sample. Any further reductions would quickly render the cell sizes (the number of

respondents who fall into any category-as a result of our manipulation of the data) so small as

to be meaningless. In Stephens' earlier study of specialisation in the Senate minimum levels of

activity were set (1975: 18) but his survey covered all senators and could afford some

exclusions. In our case we have restricted our analysis of the parliamentary records (Hansard)

to only those members who were interviewed, a procedure which trades statistical imprecision

for greater explanatory power (by linking members' personal characteristics and opinions with

their specialisation scores).

TABLE TWO

Index of specialisation, debates and questions, 1984.

Level of specialisation

High (4.47-6.00)

Medium (2.94-4.46)

Low (1.40-2.93)

Debates

5

36

59

100 n=44

Questions

(4.26-6.00) 16

(2.56-4.25) 39

(0.87-2.55) 45

100 n=44

The second table ranks these index scores and again suggests an absence of

specialisation consonant with the underlying influences already discussed.. Nearly half of the

MPs demonstrate a reluctance to specialise in the questioning procedure and 60 per cent in

debates. The curious aspect of this, though this time more forcefully so, is that again there is

a greater tendency to specialise in questions than in debate. Given the lack of substantive

knowledge or expertise one might need to ask a question relative to making a speech, and the

use of Question Time for political purposes rather than as an information source (Uhr 1982),

12 0f

those respondents with less than 10 contributions to debate, only one has a score which places

him in the highest specialisation category and six of the remaining eleven have scores which fall in the lower half of the index. On all other questions which might have been used to determine an MP's propensity to specialise, the respondent with the high score revealed himself as a generalist and, for the purpose of analysis, was coded as a generalist.

29

it might be thought questioning would be a less specialised activity. We can explain this

result when we consider that the participants in the two procedures vary somewhat. Question

Time is largely the bailiwick of the opposition frontbench and the government backbench 13 (even if only tossing up Dorothy Dixers), whereas debate involves a larger cross-section of members. The shadow ministers are considerably more specialised in their questioning than

the government backbench, with nearly 90 per cent falling into the medium to high

specialisation strata compared with the other group's 40 per cent, as shown in Table Three.

TABLE THREE

Index of specialisation for questions and debates by parliamentary status, 1984.

Questions Index Debates Index

7. 7.

Level of Oppn Govt Uppn Oppn Govt Oppn Oppn

Specialisation Ftbnch Bkbnch Bkbnch Ftbnch Bkbnch Bkbnch

High (4.47-6.00) 40 5

Medium (2.94 -4.46) 50 35

Low (1.4-2.93) 10 60

100 100

n=10 n=20

17 10 0 0 5

33 50 40 25 37

50 40 60 75 58

100 100 100 100 100

n=20 n=10 n=20 n=12 n=22

In debates, on the other hand, this discrepancy is much less. Opposition frontbenchers

still exhibit a greater tendency to specialise, with some 60 per cent falling in the upper levels

of the index, compared with 40 per cent of the majority party backbenchers. But the

difference disappears altogether when the Labor backbenchers are compared with the

opposition as a whole. The marked absence of specialisation in debate amongst opposition

backbenchers reflects their somewhat minor role in the chambers. As loyal foot-soldiers they

are brought into the parliamentary battle to do little more than fire grape-shot at the behest

of their superior officers. As players in the opposition team, they are expected to be observe

team rules and discipline, to fill up the gaps when speakers are required, and to limit their

contributions largely to team-sanctioned positions. A great deal of effort goes into scripting

13 For a breakdown of those who asked and those who answered in the 31st parliament, see Uhr

(1982: 51-9).

30

and managing these daily confrontations on the part of the whips and the chamber managers

and one of the backbencher's greatest sins is to depart from the plan by speaking for too short

a time or letting down the side and reducing morale. Backbenchers on both sic,es give their

whips an indication of the subjects on which they are prepared to speak but they are often

called upon for other duties as the whips dictate. Because of the greater representativeness of

debate than questions, the specialisation index scores for debates are used in the remaining

analyses in this paper.

An Alternative Measure of Specialisation

In order to confirm our finding of relatively low specialisation we have reconsidered the

data using an alternative measure. This method compares the contributions of participants in

debate within subject areas, that is, it adjudges MPs specialists in particular subjects by comparing them with the mean contribution of other speakers on those subjects. For

example, if the average number of speeches per member in communications is 2, 5, we might

consider a speaker who made 8 speeches in that area a specialist because that is about three

times the average. We first establish the mean of the contributions for each subject area. The

average number of contributions per area ranged from 1.0 (in aviation, the art s, sport and

recreation etc) to 5.9 (in law reform). Next, by determining the ratio of the individual's

contribution in any one area to the mean contributions of all participants in that area, we can

establish a criterion which may be regarded as a badge of specialisation. The ratios differ

widely: one frontbench opposition member spoke some 6.7 times the mean for his area; a

senator with an interest in law and order made 11 speeches which was 4.2 times the mean.

Others did not perform as consistently, some recording ratios as low as 0.3. In general, high

ratios are uncommon, most MPs' contributions falling in a narrow range around the mean.

The assumption that a specialist is one who speaks three or more times the mean, therefore, is

not unrealistic and, indeed, represents only a modest concentration of interest. The relatively

undeveloped pattern exhibited by our coefficient of variation method is reflected here. On this

basis only 13 of our sample (30 per cent) can be classed as specialists. Of these, nine have

only one speciality, three have two specialities, and one has three.

Of the specialists, nine are opposition shadow ministers or former ministers, a clear

demonstration of the division of labour necessitated in the opposition by the division of la ,ur

of the political executive and the relative unimportance of specialisation to ordinary

backbenchers on both sides of politics. Even at twice the mean, the number of `specialists' is

low, exactly half of the sample. Some subjects attract more `specialists' (at twice: the mean)

than others: there are four in agriculture and fisheries, three in industry and commerce, and

31

two each in communications, education, health, transport, immigration and ethnic affairs,

national security, and foreign affairs. The absence of specialists and contributions to

`economic' subjects reflects the monopoly held in these areas by the opposition inner circle -the leaders and shadow economic spokespeople - most of whom were not.part of the sample.

Not surprisingly, the parties differ in terms of the subjects they favour. For the

National party (at twice the mean) there are three specialists in agriculture and fisheries, one

in the economy and taxation, and one in law and order. The Liberal specialists reflect the

somewhat broader interests of the shadow ministry with specialists in communications,

want to make legislative and policy changes which would `make for a better Australia' and a

further 16 per cent have hopes of improving conditions in their electorates through the

15 On this point Stephens observes `...the weight given, consciously or semi-consciously, to legislative work within the totality of the political career affects the significance of subject specialisation' (1975: 39).

38

channels of influence only available to the federal parliamentarian. Indeed, most think they

are doing just that: 88 per cent think they have been at least moderately successful thus far.

But for many MPs these successes are most readily attained in the electorate; often frustrated

by failing to achieve the changes they want at the top level, and with temperaments best

suited to the welfare role, they turn to their constituencies for a comfortable and satisfying

role. Labor members, in particular, are attracted to this role (Walter 1979: 33). The parties

display marked disparities in the proportions of each choosing a legislative or representative

role. The coalition's members are more strongly attuned to a national or party policy-making

role (65 per cent) than the Labor members (26 per cent), a result which mirrors the division of

labour within each party which we discussed in the previous section.

The Specialists: A New Information Class?

It might be hypothesised that those who do specialise are the product of an increasingly

specialised society which places a premium on expertise.. We could reasonably expect them to

be young, have high levels of education, and more often to be males than females. There is a

common belief that political power in the bureaucracy is increasingly falling out of the hands

of established power brokers and into the hands of groups variously described as the `new

Those who regret this movement are critical of these groups, usually in terms of their

unrepresentativeness of `ordinary' people. They are said to be young, highly educated, possess

specialised skills, often wealthy, articulate and skilled in the management of information.

Whatever the truth of the matter in the bureaucracy, do the subject specialists in parliament

fall within these categories?

Over the years the membership of parliament has become more highly educated and

younger (Rydon 1986: 47, 153) but these are not characteristics of those who specialise. A

surprising finding was that those without university degrees were much more likely to score

well as specialists, with almost 60 per cent of them falling into the middle and upper levels of

the index. Three-quarters of the tertiary educated specialised only minimally. This result is

unusual because a university education is likely to lead not only to substantive knowledge

(that is, some degree of expertise) but also to the use of techniques of information

management and research strategies. The reason for this result is unclear. It may, in part, be

caused by the presence in the non-tertiary group of a small group of `rogue specialists' - those

without formal educational qualifications who do only the minimum of service in the

chambers. The hypothesis that there is a body of university educated young people holding

down marginal seats and thereby being forced to be generalists does not hold water; there are,

39

in fact, more non-tertiary MPs in the marginals. With regard to the type of school the MP

attended it can be said that those who attended private non-Catholic schools were more

focused in their interests than. those from state schools, but not by much. Former students of

the Roman Catholic schools fell almost exclusively into the most general category.

The idea that specialists are young is also erroneous, the cohort most keen to develop

expertise being those in their fifties, followed fairly closely by the over-60s. While there is not

a lot of difference between the ages, about two-thirds of the youngest group are again at the

generalist end of the continuum compared with a similar number at the other end in those

aged 50-59. It is possible this result is connected with length of service as this variable shows

a similar pattern. Specialisation increases along with the length of parliamentary service. As

Table Seven demonstrates, there is a positive correlation between these two variables.18

TABLE SEVEN

Specialisation index by length of service

Level of Specialisation

High (4.47-6.00)

Medium (2.94-4.46)

Low (1.40-2.93)

Service

< 4 Years 4 - 8 Years

14 38

86 62

100 100

n=15 n=10

> 8 Years

3

54

43

100 n=19

New parliamentarians are generalists to a person, those in mid-career have developed

one or two interests but still cast their nets widely, specialising no more than the parliament

as a whole, whilst those near the end of their careers tend to pursue more concentrated

interests. Of the latter group, many, disillusioned with political life, frustrated by their

inability to effect meaningful change, and with ministerial ambitions thwarted, get involved in

personal causes and issues and take the time to specialise to achieve `just one important thing'

before retirement. One such member, who thought he had had a pretty marked impact' on

16 Judge found a similar weak correlation (see p.83).

40

his subject area still has one or two items on his personal agenda and did not want to leave

before completing them:

I got up two amendments a while ago, and a completely new act in 1973, and there should be another before I leave; with a bit of luck I might be able to convince the caucus of my views on [the steel industry].17

Quite apart from wanting to pursue a personal agenda, there are some purely practical

reasons for this outcome. New members need time to learn the parliamentary ropes, cultivate

and master their electorates, organise staff and delegate responsibility, and generally settle

into their new roles. It is one of the unwritten rules that they will serve an apprenticeship

before attaining positions of authority 18 and not speak out unless called upon (see Walter

1979: 31). As putty in the whips' hands, they do a lot of the legislative hack work and have

limited opportunities to use the formal parliamentary procedures for their own ends.

This may also constitute evidence of a connection between an embryonic-delegate style

of representation and specialisation, not as Judge hypothesised but, as we suggested earlier,

that the delegate must be a generalist to represent the diversity of opinions and interests in

his electorate. Walter's description of the first year of the parliamentary career suggests a

willingness amongst MPs to act in ways of which the constituency would approve (1979: 31).

This does not last for long, for there is a great deal of role learning in that time, and a more

independent stance comes with increasing confidence and political successes. Congressional

and Californian neophytes exhibit a similar progression from delegate to trustee `as a result of

their growing experience in the legislature' (Loewenberg and Patterson 1979: 181).

A much less surprising result is that the specialists are all men and all the women are

generalists. Sawer and Simms (1984) have shown that women MPs are given stereotyped roles

in parliament, often in the `nurturing' fields of health and welfare. All the women interviewed

had a strong electorate focus (especially the senators) and so ranged widely in their interests.

Most said they had a special responsibility to meet women's needs for representation across

many of the areas of governmental activity.

17 Aspects of quotations from MPs have been changed in this paper to protect the identities of those

interviewed.

18 One third of the sample volunteered (without prompting) this norm in the interviews.

41

Making It To The Top: Does Specialisation Help?

Perhaps the most peculiar paradox of our findings is the contradiction between the low

overall level of specialisation demonstrated by the indices and the high proportion of members

who see themselves as specialists. Two thirds of those to whom we talked saw themselves as

specialists and affirmed the necessity or importance of specialisation to being an effective MP.

Everyone should make a choice. of a few subjects and get involved in them. It's not possible to fully understand everything in this life. A simplistic overview in my opinion is simply not a contribution to this country, (Liberal party senator)

The other side of the coin is unless you are using these specialisations to pursue an ambition to get into the ministry, there's not a lot of point being there because you can't get much satisfaction out of being a general dogsbody. (Labor party House member)

The futur:: belongs to those who prepare for it. I'm working on three to five areas. I think it's important as a new senator to get a smattering of three to five portfolios. (National party senator)

Whip and Walter also report between two-thirds and three-quarters in favour of

specialisation (Whip 1977: 295; Walter 1979: 32), although more than half of Whip's members

looked upon their fellows as generalists and without expertise. There are several reasons for

these discrepancies. One of them is the possibility of differences of meaning between MPs and

researchers. To the member specialisation might mean no more than having a few goals or

objectives, whilst the researcher has a more definite and precise concept in mind. Another is

that in a specialised world which values knowledge highly - the emphasis on merit in the

public sector, for example - there is some pressure on MPs to profess specialised knowledge on

their part and the lack of it on the part of others. It takes a brave parliamentarian to answer,

as one Labor member from Victoria did,

I am a generalist. I'm stuck with it. I've got a sponge-like mind that soaks up everything. Read it once and it is in there. I'm a lateral thinker, I find it hard to specialise.

But perhaps the most significant reason is to be found somewhere in the schizophrenic

reception given specialised knowledge by those in positions of authority in the legislature. We

have already suggested that one of the ways in which the powerful party elites manipulate the

use of knowledge and information in the parliamentary system to their advantage is by

denying the value of expertise both to advancement and as a base for authority. How effective

is this norm amongst parliamentarians? Do MPs see specialisation as essential or even helpful

to becoming a minister? There is no doubt that making it into the political executive is a goal

42

most members aspire to. In our sample those who wanted to be ministers outnumbered those

who did not by two to one. The almost equal division of opinion over the worth of

specialisation is shown in the following table (Table Eight).

TABLE EIGHT

Specialisation index by desire to become a minister, 1984.

Index of Do you aspire to a ministerial position?

Specialisation Yes No

High 4 7

Medium 39 29

Low 57 64

100 100

n=28 n=14

Those who want a ministry are slightly more specialised than those who do not but,

once again, the differences are too small to have any meaning. Specialisation is an important

tool for convincing colleagues one has the necessary ability to handle a portfolio and not let

down the side but it does not of itself ensure elevation. In all parties aspirants must show

some ability but being more able than another does not mean a better chance of making it.

Expertise does endow some authority; a good grasp of the facts of any matter lends an

air of authority and weight to the MP's argument.

You see it again and again; people coming to grief in the shadow cabinet by making a generalist statement and there is someone there who has more specific knowledge who will show them up. (Liberal party frontbencher)

Unless you get on top of a subject and are in a position to persuade because you are an expert - you have authority - then you'll contribute nothing. (Liberal party backbencher)

The importance of expertise relative to other authority variables in the parliament is

nonetheless not so high as to lead too many members to seek it as a way to the top. That the

43

â¢ demonstration of knowledge bestows some kudos, however slight, may be part of the reason

why MPs are so keen to own up to it whilst den y ing its presence in their peers.

Specialisation: The Minor Variables

To this point we have looked largely at the broad structural determinants of

specialisation and some of the more immediate reasons as to why politicians specialise. There

remains the question of, having made the decision to focus one's interests, how the MP settles

on a particular area or issue?

Every MP has his or her own reasons for concentrating on specific subjects. We asked

the sample to suggest the most important determinant of their interests. Nearly one quarter

nominated an earlier occupation and a similar proportion tied it to personal interest and

curiosity. Some 17 per cent cited major interests within their electorate and 15 per cent opted

for party based reasons, such as a factional choice or the need to concentrate on what the

party wanted to achieve at any given time. Service on a parliamentary committee sparked

the interest of seven per cent and of the remaining 11 per cent at least half saw their choice as

offering better prospects of advancement than other areas.19

Some MPs from both sides get involved in the `fringe' issues of parliamentary and

electoral reform because many of the social issues such as welfare are too amorphous to make

a satisfying contribution and because parliament naturally attracts a few who are interested

in tinkering with the machinery of democracy or who believe there are imbalances within the

system which must be rectified. The ALP has long pursued interests such as these. Specific

positions of authority, such as the Speakership and Presidency, were an encouragement to at

least four of our interviewees to concentrate in this area. It is noteworthy that the chairs of

parliamentary committees do not figure strongly as a reason for specialisation, probably

because, as with elevation to the ministry, demonstrated expertise in the field does not of

itself ensure preferment. As with any of the spoils of the legislature, these are in the power of

19 Stephens also found occupation and personal interest to be important factors. He identifies three broad influences on choice of subject area: pre-parliamentary socialisation; institutional pressures, particularly the operation of the Westminster system and parliamentary committees; and the combined pressures of party and constituency. See pp.17-39 and Judge (1981: 106-10).

44

the leadership (in the coalition) and the factions (in the Labor party).20

The electoral connection encourages most MPs to generalise but a couple chose the

opposite course, to specialise in those areas in which they were best able to deliver benefits to

their electorates. Federal MPs do not have the same opportunities to shower their home

towns with public goods such as roads, schools, hospitals and so on as their state equivalents

but they do not pass them up when they come along. One long-serving MP would have

undoubtedly felt quite at home in that most blatant of pork-barrelling legislatures, the US

Congress. He reasoned:

When I'm in a position to supply facilities, I'm interested. I'm interested in schools but not in an academic way, not in what is taught or anything like that.'

Furthermore, he demonstrated the congressperson's faith in the cue-giver:

You don't have time to know what to do so you rely on the bloke who has made it his business to know.'

The ascent to power of Mr Howard while these interviews were conducted also had an

effect on specialisation, causing some respondents to change their subject interest between the

time of arranging the interview and when it was actually carried out. This is the phenomenon

of the instant expert' known to parliamentary staff who must brief the shadow minister. As

one shadow wryly commented, one's specialisation could easily be determined by the fortunes

of war',

Two Types of Specialisation

One of the reasons we have advanced for the low overall level of specialisation in

parliament is the representational factor: few MPs specialise because they are simply too

busy within their electorates to have time for specialised legislative work. There is reasonable

evidence for this: the spread of interests in any electorate has a marked effect on the MP's

specialisation score, and senators, who we might have thought of as having fewer

20 So much so that when, in 1987, the number of parliamentary and caucus committees was substantially increased, the Labor party appeared more concerned with the division of chairs amongst its factions than the implications for parliament of the decision itself. See `Labor factions get out the long knives', The Age , 23 September 1987; `Scramble for the consolation prizes', The Sydney Morning Herald , 19 September 1987.

45

representational burdens than House members, in fact see themselves as only marginally more

nationally oriented and have scores relatively similar to their colleagues in the other place.

Nevertheless, there are some inconsistencies which arise on this point and need explanation.

On the face of it, a heavy representative burden might also lead, in a rational world, to more

rather than less specialisation. If the MP has onerous electorate duties, it stands to reason

that he might try to specialise in the chambers (which is what we have measured, after all)

simply in order to survive. Some of the respondents did feel that such a course of action was

necessary. Similarly, if there is a crush of representative work to do, how is it that some

members have distinct and unmistakeable specialisms? Shadow ministers, for example, fall

into this category. What is it about this group that frees them from their representative

responsibilities?

We have suggested that part of the answer lies in the relationship between the

parliamentarian and his staff, that is, by devolving such work to their staff, MPs can devote

themselves more completely to particular interests on which they hope to have some impact

at a national level. If the MP can off-load the day-to-day work he can adopt a legislation or

policy orientation. If this is so, then is it the case that the level of specialisation in the

parliament, or, for that matter, the proportion of nationally oriented MPs, is a simple matter

of staff numbers? If MPs were given larger staffs and more facilities would they turn more to

national policy-making over local welfare work?

The answer is probably no, for a number of reasons. First, and most important, the

choice of role on the part of the MP - of policy initiator or facilitator of electorate demands -is widely held to be a function of factors specific to the individual MP, such as education and

position within the legislature, and not the nature of the legislative environment (Atkinson

Campbell, A., Converse, P.E., Miller. W.E. and D.E. Stokes, 1960 The American Voter New York, John Wiley and Sons.

Campbell, C., 1977 `The Interplay of Institutionalisation and the Assignment of Tasks in Parliamentary and Congressional Systems: The House of Commons and the House of Representatives, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 18,127-53.